


Night Vision

by wertstoffhof (roachprince)



Series: kindness won't save anyone: asw inspired [8]
Category: iKON (Korea Band)
Genre: But also, Heist AU, M/M, Parent Death, accidentally drunk married my highschool bestie au, as you can see this will be a mess, con artists!ikon, everyone is a disaster, future smut and future violence, hitman!jinhwan, kind of like ocean's/the italian job but gayer, rated m for swearing and nudity FOR NOW, tags will be updated as I go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-27 23:05:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13891029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roachprince/pseuds/wertstoffhof
Summary: Back in his hometown for a job, Jinhwan reconnects with his best friends from school. Things are very quick to massively deteriorate from there.(Jiwon has to come to terms with the facts that 1) becoming a thief might be a more valid career option than he initially thought, and 2) Jinhwan might be the best teacher he couldmarryask for.)also on hellsite





	1. Prologue A

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _When someone tells you you are wasting your life,_   
>  _smile real wide, and suggest they be grateful_   
>  _that you don’t waste theirs next._   
>  _(it’s the little things that keep us going.[like violence](http://softerworld.tumblr.com/post/91253163146/a-softer-world-1127-its-the-little-things-that))_

“Vegas?” says his sister, her voice as clear as day even through thousands of miles of phone lines. “Why? I thought you always hated it there.”

“Yeah,” Jinhwan replies and tries not to shrug with his phone pressed between his shoulder and his ear. He tried putting the call on speaker earlier but that only led to them finding out that his microphone sucks. “But the parties’re nice.”

“Please, you were nineteen when we moved away,” she says with a scoff. “You never went to any parties.”

“That’s what you think.”

“You were a scrawny little loser, bro, sorry but you’ve never seen a real Vegas casino from the inside.”

“Well,” Jinhwan carefully places the zip-up plastic bag with his black tux in his suitcase, “then it’s about time that I do, don’t you think?”

“Maybe,” his sister says, and it’s clear that what she means is  _ no. _ “Listen, Jinanie… If mom and dad ask me about you, what am I… I mean, I don’t wanna lie to them--”

“So don’t,” Jinhwan says. He tries to stay civil with his sister, always does, because she tries to be nice to him, always does, but it’s hard to keep the hardness out of his voice sometimes. “Don’t lie to them. Tell them I’m going back to Vegas to party. Kindly redirect them to my number if they have something to say about that.”

“You know they just worry about you,” she says softly. “Your twenties are… This is supposed to be such a good, eventful time in your life, you know, and it kind of feels like you’re just… I mean, those aren’t  _ my _ words, but it’s kind of like, um, kind of like you’re just throwing them away. I mean, other people go to college or start businesses, and they meet friends they’ll keep for the rest of their lives, don’t you… Don’t you miss that? All you ever do is jet around and go on parties, and I mean it sounds cool at first, but doesn’t it get … kind of lonely after a while?”

Jinhwan checks his tiny stash of ammunition, makes sure it’s packed correctly and separately from his gun. It’s all just for show; he travels safely and legally like a regular citizen who just so happens to carry a gun around with him. He won’t do his actual work with this thing. He’ll buy a used gun over in Las Vegas and shoot his target with that and no one will be any wiser.

“That’s a bit of a loaded question, sis,” he says and zips his suitcases shut. “But I’m doing fine. Don’t worry about me.”

His sister sighs. “Alright. Well, have fun in Vegas, then. Take care, please, Jinanie. And have a safe flight.”

“Thanks,” Jinhwan says and checks his watch for the time. A little over forty hours to go before the kill. He’s doing great.

  
  


Thirty-nine hours later, Jinhwan shoots the senior executive of a firm he doesn’t care about and lets him bleed out on the linoleum floor of a high-rise apartment over the city of Las Vegas. He dumps the gun in the kitchen bin before he leaves the place; it was a shitty, cheap old thing and he’s glad it even worked at all.

Two hours later, Jinhwan collects his payment. He’s been in the business for a while. He does a good job and he is heavily armed. He can demand a good sum of money.

Another two hours later, Jinhwan is back in his hotel room and stares out towards the blinking lights of the city he grew up in. His black work clothes don’t exist anymore, he always destroys them right between coming back from a kill and showering. So right now he’s wearing something a little more casual, a little more revealing, a little more  _ fun. _

It’s time to blend in. To do what every other Las Vegas tourist with not a single crime to his name would do. It’s time to go down there and get as drunk as he can.

 

_ Blur _

 

His sister doesn’t know, but Jinhwan did go to parties as a teenager. Big ones, not just the ones his high school friends organized. Parties he shouldn’t have gone to. He goes back there tonight. He could still find them blind. A stupid sense of nostalgia drags him there, and maybe something else.

 

_ Blur _

 

There’s a familiar face in the crowd, then another one. Maybe  _ this _ dragged him here, the hope, or even the knowledge, that they’d be here on a night like this. Like they never went anywhere. Like Jinhwan never went anywhere, like his parents never moved away, like they never lost touch.

Both of them still look exactly the same.

 

_ Blur _

 

Even after all this time on the job, Jinhwan doesn’t take his alcohol well. Neither does Hanbin.

Jiwon’s voice has gotten deeper than the last time he saw him. They’re both taller now. Jinhwan isn’t, but tonight, he can laugh about it.

 

_ Blur _

 

Hanbin throws up in a bush somewhere. Jinhwan is still laughing. Jiwon says he knows  _ exactly _ where they should go next.

 

_ Blur. Blackout. More laughter, a warm hand. Fumbling for his hotel key card. Blackout. _

 

Jinhwan groans. Through the haze in his mind and the throbbing between his temples, all he can really make out is that he has to piss like a racehorse. He struggles out of bed and almost screams when sunlight hits him, so he yanks the blinds shut with clumsy hands, then he stumbles towards the bathroom. The doorway collides with his shoulder and he tries to yelp, but all that comes out of his mouth is a hoarse wheeze. He feels like somebody replaced his tongue with a sheet of sandpaper. His throat tastes like a rat crawled in and died there.

It takes all of his concentration to aim for the bowl. Jinhwan sways as he stands, but his vision is starting to clear at least a little bit. He mentally thanks himself for not turning on the bathroom light. It’s dark in here, but he’s slowly starting to see, slowly starting to feel his own body again.

He is stark naked. His back hurts. His hair feels like a poorly maintained wig. There’s no body fluids smeared over his stomach or anywhere else, as far as he can tell, so he might not have had sex last night, but he can’t shake the feeling that he did try. He did try to sleep with someone, only it might not have worked out because he was too hammered and couldn’t tell his own dick from a slightly dehydrated cucumber anymore.

Who did he try to sleep with? Someone?

_ Someone? _

Fuck.

He stops pissing the exact second his hungover mind pieces two and two together, like his body suddenly seals itself up to make sure nothing else can escape his stupid skin.

_ Jiwon. _ He tried to fuck  _ Jiwon. _ His  _ high school best friend _ Jiwon. He knew he’d still be here, and he knew exactly where to find him, and his already drunk self felt like it was a good idea to seek him out, him and Hanbin, his  _ other _ high school best friend, reconnect through body shots and bad club music, and he tried to fuck Jiwon.

Again, Jinhwan looks down the front of his body, runs his dry tongue through his mouth searching for a certain taste, even pats his hands down his own back and ass in case he has cum sticking to his skin somewhere, anywhere.

But there’s nothing.  _ Thank god, _ there’s nothing. They must have given up, or Jinhwan must have given up, or maybe Jiwon was, for once in his life, more responsible than him and stopped them in time.

Wait.

Where  _ is _ Jiwon?

Jinhwan looks around once more. This does look like his hotel bathroom, but truthfully, all hotel bathrooms look the same and he didn’t put anything personal in here. He washes his hands as quietly as he can, splashes some cold water on his face and does his best to ignore how some of it runs down his chin, to his throat and his chest, then he inches back into the rest of the room.

Yeah, this is his hotel room. That is his queen size hotel bed. And that is his former best friend Kim Jiwon lying in said queen size hotel bed, blinking at him blearily.

“Jin-?” he starts croaking, then his eyes slip a little and he lets out a hoarse laugh. “Oh, wow, you’re really naked.”

“Please tell me you’re naked, too,” Jinhwan replies to that, even if he’s not completely sure why. He’s still really glad that they didn’t sleep with each other, or at least they  _ probably _ didn’t, but maybe he just doesn’t want to be the only naked hungover mess standing around in this room.

Jiwon lifts the bright white blanket and peeks under it, taking a little long to check how much he’s wearing, like his mind is still slow this early after waking up. “Uhh, yeah,” he says, still looking. “Yep, I am definitely naked.”

“Good,” Jinhwan says and crawls back into bed. He thinks it should be weird to be here with Jiwon, sit next to him in a hotel bed when he hasn’t seen him in years, but they’re both still a little bit drunk, and besides, it’s Jiwon. Things are always easy with Jiwon. Jinhwan pulls his half of the blanket up over his lap and leans his back against the cool headboard. “I don’t think we fucked, though.”

“We didn’t?” Jiwon says, dropping the blanket back on his chest and looking up at him quizzically. “You sure? Does your ass hurt?”

“No, it-- Hey, why would  _ my _ ass hurt?” Jinhwan fires back and flicks Jiwon’s forehead, which, he figures in retrospect, is a very mean thing to do to a very hungover man. Jiwon lets out an exaggerated wail that hurts Jinhwan’s ears and presses both hands to his face, but Jinhwan continues talking like nothing happened. “Why do you automatically assume I’d bottom, you little punk? You somehow being ten foot tall now doesn’t mean anything, okay, you prick?”

“I was just asking! Jesus. Don’t worry, I’d let you top if you wanted to, even if I’m ten feet and you’re, like, four.  _ Ow!” _

“You deserved that,” says Jinhwan after smacking his shoulder.

“Yeah, I guess.” Jiwon resurfaces from guarding himself with his forearms and beams at him now, his puffy eyes crinkling with his smile. “It’s nice to have you back in town.”

“Of course it is, I’m a delight,” Jinhwan says and squints a little. He does somewhat remember telling Jiwon and Hanbin last night that he’s here for fun, to party and to catch up a bit, because he has the free time right now. He remembers how weird it felt to lie to his friends, he never had to do that back in school, but he also wasn’t killing people for money back in school. He doesn’t remember that much else, though. “So, wait, how much do you remember? Because I’m not even sure how we ended up here.”

“This  _ is _ your hotel room, right?” Jiwon says first, and laughs a bit when Jinhwan nods. “Okay. Uh, I think I remember almost everything. I’m  _ really _ not sure why we’re both naked, but the rest is mostly… Oh, shit.”

The look he gives Jinhwan is almost comically wide-eyed, like he saw a ghost behind him, and Jinhwan’s stomach does an ugly flip. “What?” he presses. “Why are you looking at me like that? What did we do?”

“Uh…” Jiwon says again, then he rolls on his side to rummage through the pile of clothes next to the bed. He can’t look at Jinhwan like this, which Jinhwan assumes is the point, but he can still see his neck flush. “I think we might have… Um, I think we got married or something, maybe.” He mumbles the last few words, making them almost unintelligible, but Jinhwan still barks out a laugh that hurts his throat.

“Bullshit,” he says. “You know as well as I do that that’s a myth, they don’t just blindly marry drunk people just because it’s Vegas.”

“They do if they seem just sober enough.”

“I distinctly remember Hanbin throwing up. And the fact that I don’t remember anything but that probably means that I was doing just as bad. No fucking way did we get married, Jiwon.”

“They also do if,” Jiwon says, even quieter now, “you bribe them a little bit.”

_ “Who bribed them to marry us?” _

“I think I might’ve.” Jiwon’s voice is barely above a whisper now but he sits up again, holding a haphazardly folded piece of paper and his wallet in his hands. He opens his wallet to find it empty save for a single dollar bill and a few credit cards, then he opens the piece of paper to find the words  _ Certificate of Marriage _ right at the top. Jinhwan opens his mouth and closes it again.

“Well, that’s…” he says slowly, unsure what exactly it is he’s trying to express here.

“It’s okay,” Jiwon cuts in, softly, still frowning at the paper in his hands. “We’ll just get an, uh, an annulment or whatever it’s called.”

“Oh,” Jinhwan says. Somehow he hadn’t even thought of that. “Yeah, right. We can do that.”

Jiwon huffs a little laugh, then he drops the paper on the blanket over their legs and leans to the side again. Jinhwan doesn’t like him digging around through the clothes pile there on the floor, but he can’t really remember if he put anything dangerous there or not. He might have. Drunk Jinhwan isn’t exactly the most responsible guy around. “I gotta say, this is very us,” Jiwon says and resurfaces with his phone in his hands. “I wonder where Hanbin ended up. He’s not here, right? How big is this place?”

He twists in bed a little to look around the hotel room, and Jinhwan watches him. Weird, he thinks. It’s weird to meet someone you saw last when you were both still pimply scrawny teenagers. Jiwon looks good.

“Not very,” he replies. “He wasn’t lying around in the bathroom when I took a piss, so unless he’s hiding in that tiny wardrobe over there, he’s not here.”

“I feel like we should check,” Jiwon says, eyeing the wardrobe, but nobody moves. That’s at least four steps away from the bed. (Five for Jinhwan.) And that is entirely too far to leave the warmth of the blanket. Jiwon shrugs and looks back at his phone. “I’ll text him.” He taps around on the touch screen and Jinhwan goes back to watching him, his toned arms, his clumsy hungover fingers. Fuck, Jiwon looks  _ good. _ “Shit, I’m at six percent,” Jiwon says and Jinhwan blinks. “Do you have a charger I can use?”

“Yeah, in my suitcase,” Jinhwan says, so Jiwon sighs deeply. His suitcase is about as far away as the wardrobe.

“I’ll get it later,” Jiwon says. His phone, too, lands somewhere on the mattress and Jinhwan refrains from asking why he doesn’t just put his stuff on the nightstand like a normal person.

“How’ve you been doing?” he asks instead. It slips out like he wasn’t supposed to be saying it, but Jinhwan isn’t going to act like he doesn’t care. They were close, they used to be close, and he doesn’t recall asking him this last night. Or getting a straight answer.

“Alright. I guess,” Jiwon says quietly. He’s half lying, half sitting in bed now, and Jinhwan stares at him. That’s not… That is not how Kim Jiwon replies to questions. Jinhwan keeps staring until he can very clearly watch Jiwon falter, see the resignation in his face and he sits up properly. His hands are in his lap and he watches them instead of Jinhwan when he says, “Dad died.”

Someone dumps a bucket of ice water on Jinhwan’s head and then proceeds to both slap him awake and kick him in the stomach. His temples are still throbbing but he suddenly doesn’t feel hungover at all anymore. “Shit,” he breathes, then, “Fuck. Shit,” he says again and it at least makes Jiwon pull up one corner of his mouth into a beaten looking grin. “I’m sorry. When?  _ How?” _

“We’re,” Jiwon says, hesitates, and continues, “still looking into it. It’s been half a year, and we’re still looking into it.”

Something heavy settles into Jinhwan’s freshly kicked stomach. “Looking into it?” he echoes, frowning at him. Jiwon is still looking at his lap, and Jinhwan wishes he wasn’t. He feels like there’s some sort of insinuation between them, something horribly, terribly dark he has picked up on, but he needs to know if it’s just his professionally fucked up imagination or not. “What does that mean, looking into it? Why do you have to  _ look into _ it?”

Jiwon leans his head against the off-white wall behind them and looks at the ceiling instead of his lap. “Do you remember,” he says and clears his throat, “the thing that Dad used to call his second business?”

“Yes,” Jinhwan says slowly. He  _ wanted _ it to be his professionally fucked up imagination. He really did. Jinhwan’s throat clicks dryly when he gulps. “You think he… You think someone murdered him?”

“We’re looking into it,” Jiwon repeats, his voice a rough whisper before he shifts a bit and smiles at Jinhwan. “How’ve  _ you _ been doing?”

“I’m okay,” Jinhwan says immediately, which isn’t completely true, but he just makes a dismissive gesture at himself and keeps staring at Jiwon. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you, man. We should have… I wish we could have stayed in contact somehow, but I guess we’re all too stupid. I’m going to leave you my number this time and you’re going to text me whenever you want, alright? Just pester the shit out of me. I mean it.”

“Well, I would hope so,” Jiwon says, sounding a bit more like himself as he snorts towards the general direction of their feet. “After all, we’re married now.” Jinhwan doesn’t know what to say to that so he just laughs helplessly, and Jiwon picks some invisible lint off the blanket. “How long you staying in town for?” he asks his fingers. “We could like, you know, get dressed, go somewhere nice to eat, maybe find Hanbin and take him along,  _ really _ catch up. I still don’t really get why we’re naked.”

“It’s comfortable,” Jinhwan declares, and smiles. “I’m here for another night. So we could do that. We should.”

“Cool,” Jiwon says and starts leaning towards the clothes pile again. “Then I’m gonna find a pair of pants and put it on. Also I think I might need to find a place that serves breakfast along with a bottle of aspirin.”

“The great Kim Jiwon, hungover,” Jinhwan says and reaches for Jiwon’s phone before it can slip off the mattress with all of Jiwon’s movement. “Unbelievable. Hey, I’m gonna put my number in your phone so we don’t forget later, alright?”

“Sure,” Jiwon says, but Jinhwan is already doing it anyway. The phone is alerting him that it is now running on five percent battery, and Jinhwan shamelessly uses it to message his own phone so he has Jiwon’s number, too. Because they’re all stupid idiots and he doesn’t trust them as a team at all. As he puts the phone away again, he can hear Jiwon laugh. “Hey, why do you have this?”

Jinhwan looks up and Jiwon does not have a pair of pants in his hands. What he has in his hands is his gun.

Right. That’s why he didn’t want Jiwon to rummage around there so much. Because Jinhwan’s idiot ass let his gun lie around in the open.

Jiwon looks at him with amusement, somehow, and seems to expect an actual answer, and Jinhwan opens his mouth. Jiwon was startlingly honest with him, he figures, and yes he does remember his father’s  _ second business, _ he does remember that Jiwon grew up with crime. Not quite crime of this caliber, maybe, but crime nonetheless.

“To kill people with,” Jinhwan says. No need to sugarcoat it, then.

Jiwon snorts and rolls his eyes. He examines the gun some more, seemingly unaffected, and Jinhwan doesn't get it at first, until he does. Jinhwan realizes that Jiwon thinks he's holding a toy the exact same second that Jiwon realizes he's  _ not _ holding a toy.

_ “Wait, holy shit,”  _ he says, almost drops the gun, catches it clumsily and then deliberately drops it on the blanket. “Is that a  _ real gun?  _ Do you have a  _ real gun, why do you  _ have  _ this?” _

Quietly, Jinhwan reaches out and takes it in his hands. He makes sure that the safety is on, then he places it on the nightstand and looks back at Jiwon with practiced patience. “To kill people with,” he says again.

Jiwon stares at him, opening and closing his mouth like a fish on land. Jinhwan is suddenly very aware of how naked he is. “You mean,” Jiwon says, “like, to defend yourself?”

“No,” Jinhwan says, gently. “To shoot people, so I can get paid for it.”

“For a second I thought you might be a cop,” Jiwon says, speaking too fast now. “But I guess that'd be even worse.”

Jinhwan laughs quietly. “No, I'm not a cop.”

“Great,” says Jiwon. He shuffles out of bed, gets up too quickly and stumbles a few feet. “I, uh, I'm gonna get dressed.”

Jinhwan watches him, gangly limbs struggling with his ripped jeans. “Jiwon,” he says. “You alright?”

“It's,” Jiwon starts saying, then he looks at him while holding his shirt in both hands. He sighs. “It's a lot to take in, Jinhwan.”

Jinhwan almost winces at him not using a nickname for him, but he nods instead and picks up Jiwon’s phone to hand it to him. “Yeah, I know,” he says. “I know.”

“And I'm too drunk to be doing this, I think,” Jiwon continues, shoves his phone into his pants pocket and then his wallet in another. “I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna find out where Hanbin is, and get breakfast and a truckload of painkillers and then I'll… and then I'll see what sober Jiwon thinks of this.”

“Fair enough,” Jinhwan says. He wants to mean it, but he doesn't. He wishes Jiwon could stay.

“Your number’s in this?” Jiwon asks and pats his phone through his pants. When Jinhwan nods, he nods too. “Okay. I'll text you. I'll remember this time, I promise.”

“Thanks, Jiwon,” Jinhwan says and smiles a bit. He doesn't exactly believe him that he'll remember, but it's the thought that counts.

Once he's leaving, Jinhwan almost calls out to him that he forgot something, staring at the marriage certificate lying on his hotel bed like a vague threat. The door falls shut and Jinhwan doesn't say anything. He guesses it belongs to them both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to quote my own damn self, this is a lot to take in (probably). so there's a second, much calmer chapter to go with this one.


	2. Prologue B

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I want to learn to fight with knives_   
>  _to hotwire cars_   
>  _to cook for myself._   
>  _(I want to[believe](http://softerworld.tumblr.com/post/112785263346/a-softer-world-1211-i-want-to-believe-buy-this))_

Jiwon sees his face in the crowd like a mirage in the desert. He nudges Hanbin, but Hanbin has already seen him, staring with an expression as dumbfounded as Jiwon feels.

“Dude, that's Jinhwan,” Hanbin says, even though Jiwon can barely hear him over the music. He reads the name off his lips like he's been starving for it.

Jinhwan is already moving towards them.

 

_ Blur _

 

As Jinhwan comes back towards them with an armful of second drinks, Jiwon remembers the last time he saw him. He and Hanbin wanted to see him off at the airport, but Jinhwan’s parents didn’t want them to. He remembers that. He remembers the three of them sitting in Jinhwan’s room the day before his flight instead and thinking that this is much worse, because that way he and Hanbin had to leave in the end, not Jinhwan. He and Hanbin had to hug him goodbye and go out the door, not knowing when or if they’d ever see him again.

That was before everyone had a data flatrate on their phones. Way before wifi in public places. Way before Jiwon even got to look at a smartphone without his parents telling him that he doesn’t need one of those. He had a flip phone and an email address. He wasn’t very good at using them.

Jinhwan moved all the way across the country and they lost touch. Jiwon and Hanbin moved on together, enrolled at the same university, worked at Jiwon’s father’s business together, everybody started knowing them as a duo, but something was always missing. Sometimes Jiwon still looks at pictures someone took of him and Hanbin and thinks that they left room somewhere, to his side or to Hanbin’s side or in between them, for someone who’s not there.

Jinhwan pushes his drink into Jiwon’s hand and Jiwon snaps out of it, but he still uses the party atmosphere around them to close in on the kid that’s now a grown man, wrap one arm around his waist and nuzzle his face against the sweaty crook of his neck to Jinhwan’s giggles.

 

_ Blur _

 

Jiwon thinks,  _ If I marry him he can’t leave again. _

That seems to make sense to him. He almost voices the entire thought out loud, but he abbreviates it to, “Hey, man, let’s get married tonight,” and both Jinhwan and Hanbin dissolve into laughter to his sides.

“Yeah, let’s,” Jinhwan says, slurred, as he comes up again and hooks one arm around one of Jiwon’s. “Fuck, let’s get married tonight.”

 

_ Blur _

 

Jinhwan is pushing him back first against a wall in a small, half-dark hotel room. They’re both topless and Jiwon doesn’t quite remember how or when that happened. They’re looking at each other, gazes locked, Jinhwan’s hands ice cold on Jiwon’s chest.

“You’re,” Jiwon says, “so small.”

Squinting, Jinhwan raises one tiny index finger at him like he’s trying to be threatening but he obviously doesn’t know what to say to that for a good few seconds. “That’s not a very sexy thing to say during your wedding night,” he says finally. He’s speaking slowly, like it’s a great effort to make the words come out right.

“I wasn’t trying to be sexy,” Jiwon admits. “Are you?”

“I’m always sexy. I don’t have to try.”

“Makes sense,” Jiwon says dumbly. They stare at each other some more, and Jiwon wonders what’s supposed to come next. They gave each other a very quick kiss on the lips for the whole wedding deal, then broke apart laughing because Hanbin was just straight up fucking screeching next to them. Maybe they’re supposed to kiss again now, without Hanbin here to give auditory support, but maybe they’re not. Jiwon’s not sure. This is weird.

“This is weird,” Jinhwan says and Jiwon laughs. “I think I kinda just wanna go to bed.”

“Yeah, sounds good. Hey, what’s this?” Jiwon asks and runs a finger down Jinhwan’s shoulder when Jinhwan just gives him a confused look. He thinks his fingers leave goosebumps in their wake, but maybe he’s just imagining things. “The tattoo.”

“Oh,” Jinhwan says. He pulls away and tries to look at his own shoulder, but fails. Eventually, he gives up and stomps further into the room while pulling his pants off. “Fuck if I know. I don’t remember all my tattoos right now, but I think it was something dirty. Ask me again in the morning.”

“It’s already the morning,” Jiwon says helpfully, ignoring Jinhwan rolling his eyes and stumbling a bit. He follows him, also kicking off his pants now, and starts giggling when Jinhwan starts pushing down his boxers. “Wow, really? You sleep in the nude? Like, totally?”

Standing in front of the bed, Jinhwan gives first Jiwon a puzzled look, then himself. He stares at his bare dick for a bit and it’s a weird time for Jiwon to realize just how drunk they are, but then Jinhwan shrugs and crawls into bed. “I guess,” he just says.

Jiwon shrugs too and pulls off his own clothes. Then they should both be naked, he decides. They’re married now. They do stuff together. Like being naked.

 

_ Blur _

 

Jinhwan kills people now.

Jiwon grew up among criminals. The big reason they have to  _ look into _ his father’s death is that his father was a big name in the game, that he had a big crew of friends and affiliates who worked with him to steal from people, big time, coups and heists the entire continent heard of, that his father pissed off a lot of people out there. People he stole from, but also other thieves and con artists who felt threatened by his presence, even though he had been cutting back on his illegal activities to focus on his actual marketing business ever since Jiwon’s brother had grown old enough to be his assistant.

Jiwon grew up among criminals, but death is a different topic. And  _ Jinhwan _ is a different topic.

Both Jinhwan and Hanbin always knew about Jiwon’s family’s activities. Actually, both Jinhwan and Hanbin were always very interested in said activities and somehow, during their youth, had a lot more talent for the whole thing than Jiwon himself. While his dad’s big art theft coups and nighttime robberies were something only their dreams were made of, Jinhwan and Hanbin were amazing thieves, aspiring con artists. Even Jiwon’s dad thought they were pretty good, but he still -- much to both of their big, pouty teenage chagrin -- refused to allow them into his team.

Jinhwan was never well-behaved, and Jinhwan was always dangerous. But Jinhwan was also always Jiwon’s friend, Jiwon’s good, soft, small friend with a kind heart and a shoulder to lean on, and the thought of him putting a bullet through somebody’s head almost makes Jiwon’s poor hungover body throw up in the hotel room.

So he leaves. Even if he can, painfully clearly, picture Jinhwan’s lost gaze, still sitting naked in that warm bed.

His phone chimes as Jiwon drags himself through the hotel hallway and he flinches. He doesn’t remember taking it off vibrate. Like, ever. Yesterday night must have been a lot. Jiwon pulls it out of his pants pocket and sighs quietly at the sight of his low battery percentage. He doesn’t really know where he is, but if he tried to open Google Maps right now it’d probably die on the spot. Maybe he’s just going to grab a city map downstairs at the hotel reception. But first, he steps in the elevator and opens the text he just got from Hanbin as an answer to his earlier question.

**[you]**   
dude where are you

**[dumber]**   
I’m at work

**[you]**   
??????   
its sunday

**[dumber]**   
No i know   
Idk   
I woke up here

Jiwon giggles against the shitty feeling in his stomach, made worse by the elevator going down. Of course drunk Hanbin somehow deemed it fitting to go to work. Of course.

Three percent.

**[you]**   
ok just stay there my phones almost dead but ill come pick you up

  
  


Hanbin sits outside the big office building when Jiwon gets off the bus he managed to take here. He’s on his ass on the sidewalk, a McDonald’s cup in his hands and an enormous pair of sunglasses on his face. When Jiwon approaches, he looks at him for a few seconds, then he goes back to staring blankly at the other side of the street.

At least that’s what Jiwon thinks he’s doing. It’s not like he can really see his eyes.

“You look very cool with those,” Jiwon says as he stops next to him. He contemplates just sitting down next to Hanbin, but he’s kind of scared they won’t be able to get up in the end.

“I feel like a jar of yoghurt someone left in the sun for too long,” Hanbin replies. “Growing mold and shit.” He waves the hand holding the McDonald’s cup around, then raises it to his face to take a long sip, unaffected by Jiwon’s laugh.

“Well, you don’t look like moldy yoghurt.”

“Thanks,” Hanbin says and looks back up at him. “Where’s your hubby?”

Now Jiwon feels like moldy yoghurt.

“In his hotel room,” he says and extends one hand towards Hanbin. “C’mon, get up. I need some sorta sustenance. I’ll tell you more over breakfast.”

  
  


McDonald’s stopped serving breakfast four hours ago, but Jiwon and Hanbin still settle for burgers. Hanbin looks less cool and more moldy once his shades are off, but Jiwon doubts he looks much better himself.

“Alright, I’m ready, tell me everything,” Hanbin says with a mouthful of burger, but then frowns at him. “No details about your wedding night, though.”

Jiwon wrinkles his nose. “You think I’d fuck Jinhwan?”

“Okay first off, I think Jinhwan would fuck you. Second, I’ve seen you hump a street lamp. I think you’d fuck anything that tells you yes loud enough.” Rolling his eyes, Hanbin takes another huge bite. “And don’t even get me started on Jinhwan! I don’t remember how long he said he’s been in town, but he’s probably already fucked half of Las Vegas while we weren’t looking.”

_ “Okay, point taken,” _ Jiwon says loudly, mostly just to make him shut up. “Still, though. He’s my best friend. I don’t do that. I don’t fuck you, either.”

“You would, though,” says Hanbin. Jiwon sighs.

“Yeah, I would. You’re cute. But I don’t, because you’re my best friend. Are you getting where I’m going? Can you, like, focus?”

“Yes, fine, you don’t fuck your friends. Not even after marrying them. I mean, that should be some sort of wildcard, shouldn’t it? Isn’t that kinda what marriage is about?”

“God, you’re horrible,” Jiwon says and shoves a handful of fries into his mouth. They taste mostly like cardboard, but Jiwon thinks that’s more because of the general state of the inside of his mouth and less because of McDonald’s. “Listen, Jinhwan told me something about himself, and I kind of need you to take this seriously for a second. Okay?”

“Oh,” Hanbin says. Jiwon is met with a sudden rush of affection for him at how he immediately sits up straighter, puts his burger down and furrows his brows, a textbook version of listening to your friend when he tells you to. “Okay, shoot.”

That’s a somewhat ironic word to start this off with, Jiwon thinks, but he doesn’t say anything. He looks down, fiddles with his fries, and says, “Jinhwan’s a hitman now.”

Hanbin seems to be waiting for him to say more, but when Jiwon doesn’t, he just asks, “Like, professionally?”

“Yeah, sounded like it,” Jiwon says and looks up again. Briefly, he wonders if this is the right place to be talking about it, but shit, it’s McDonald’s. They don’t care. “I think he’s here on a job, too. He had a gun with him, and he was pretty straight-forward when I asked about it.”

“Huh,” says Hanbin.

Jiwon blinks at him. “Is that all?” he asks slowly, watching Hanbin chew in slow motion, like he has to think twice about every bite now.

“Well,” he says, “at least one of us stayed in the business, then.”

“You,” Jiwon starts, “I mean,  _ we _ were in the business of  _ stealing things. _ Not killing people. Aren’t you… Why aren’t you shocked?”

“Come on, it’s still Jinhwan.” Hanbin shrugs. “How much you wanna bet he only kills gross older dudes who had it coming?” When Jiwon doesn’t say anything but just makes sure to grimace a lot while eating more fries, Hanbin leans in a little more. “Look, man, I know your dad was really proud of never using guns in his heists, and that’s still the way I would prefer it too, but you and I both know that he knew a few killers. It happens. It’s not pretty, but no, I guess in a way I’m not exactly shocked that Jinhwan had it in him.”

He reaches over and takes one of Jiwon’s fries to dip it into his burger sauce, which Jiwon watches with mild confusion.

“He’s still our friend,” Hanbin continues. “If this is true then I’m not really a big fan of his new job, but I still wanna talk to him. Last night was so much fun, and it’s not like we’re not used to being buddies with criminals.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jiwon says finally, softly. He sighs into his coke straw, blowing bubbles, before taking a huge sip and staring out the window to his left for a bit. When he swallows loudly, he looks back at Hanbin. “Shouldn’t we be worried, though?”

That’s something he’d been thinking about ever since he got on the bus outside Jinhwan’s hotel. At first he was just horrified by the mental image of his friend taking somebody’s life, almost personally hurt by how Jinhwan chose this career path that harms so many people way more than a stolen painting ever could, but with time, it shifted to something else. And from the soft frown on Hanbin’s face, he can tell that he’s thinking of it too now.

“Because in the time between high school and now,” Hanbin says, “he somehow went from stealing things to killing people?” Jiwon nods. Hanbin looks at the last bits of burger between his fingers like they’re making him sad. “You think something happened?”

“I dunno,” Jiwon says quietly. “Something must have, right?”

Hanbin sighs around the rest of his burger. “Did he say something about it? Like how or when he started?”

“Uh,” Jiwon says. “No. I kinda, um, didn’t ask. As in, I kinda left as soon as I found out because I got so freaked.”

Hanbin stops chewing and just stares at him dumbly for a bit, and with every passing second, Jiwon feels more like becoming one with the sticky bench he’s sitting on. “You just,” Hanbin says with his mouth full, “took off after he told you something big like that? He sees us for the first time in forever, you two fucking elope together or whatever, he ends up trusting you enough to tell you this, and you fuck off right after?”

Jiwon gets the wild urge to apologize to Hanbin, like he left  _ him _ sitting around naked in an empty hotel room. Instead, he just grimaces at his fries some more and nods.

“You’re a disaster,” Hanbin concludes calmly. “I hope you got his number, ‘cause I wanna text him and I don’t think he still uses the one from back when we all had Nokia flip phones.”

“It’s in my phone,” Jiwon says. “But that died like an hour ago.”

“Go home and charge it, then,” Hanbin says and loudly finishes his drink. “And I’m coming with you, since apparently I can’t leave you alone anywhere.”

Jiwon thinks that’s a lot coming from someone he picked up off the sidewalk a little while ago, but he doesn’t say anything. On the way back to his messy bachelor pad, he thinks about what Hanbin said.

At least one of them stayed in the business.

Jiwon never thought he was going to get into crime. Actually, nobody did; his father never tried to pressure him into following his footsteps, which Jiwon always appreciated, even if it might have been only because he has an older brother who had to be their father’s heir instead. But even his brother didn’t end up doing elaborate heists or building up a crew. They were both happy working for their dad’s actual company, and their dad was happy seeing his sons work normal jobs. Somewhere they always knew that he would have loved for someone to continue his legacy -- his  _ other _ legacy -- but he never tried to force them into it.

Lately, however, ever since Jiwon has had to somehow deal with the thought that he’s never going to see his father again, he’s been missing that side of their lives. The atmosphere, the buzz in the air, the thrill in his dad’s eyes. He’d been lying awake thinking about heists his old man pulled, reminiscing with Hanbin about all the stories they’d been told, but that wasn’t enough.

Now -- now that it’s too late, Jiwon wishes he could have learned from him.

Hanbin used to be good. Hanbin used to be a pretty decent thief, especially with Jinhwan at his side and dumb pubescent bravery in him, he was talented. But he quit after Jinhwan left. Went to college with Jiwon, got a job, stopped taking people’s watches after bumping into them on public transport. One time Jiwon asked him if he thinks he could teach him what he still knows, but Hanbin said he doesn’t really know anything anymore, and that he doesn’t want to risk teaching Jiwon bullshit when his father isn’t around to correct them.

But at least one of them stayed in the business.

Jinhwan could probably have a lot to teach about being a criminal. Jinhwan is the kind of guy who lets a gun lie around on the floor of his hotel room while he goes to parties and gets absolutely piss drunk, and who still doesn’t get caught and doesn’t even seem remotely nervous about police. And Jiwon still knows him, Jiwon is absolutely sure that he still knows him, so Jiwon knows that Kim Jinhwan doesn’t halfass anything. If he’s in the business, then he’s  _ good. _ If he’s in the business, then he’s probably the fucking best.

Jiwon closes the apartment door behind them and groans softly at the welcoming cool of his A/C and the half-darkness behind his pulled blinds. As Hanbin throws himself on his couch with an inappropriate sounding moan, Jiwon finds the first USB cord he can grab and plucks in his phone to charge.

So maybe Jinhwan could teach him. Maybe Jinhwan could teach him how to pick locks, how do disable security cameras, how to con people.

But then again, maybe he already fucking blew it with Jinhwan, and maybe he’s not in the mood to teach him shit either way. And maybe Jiwon isn’t even sure if he wants him to when he can still feel the weight of that gun in his hands whenever he thinks about him.

His phone comes back to life, the screen lighting up with a percentage, then his lockscreen, then a notification.

Jinhwan must have texted him around the time Jiwon was getting on a bus earlier.

**[Jinani]**   
cucumbers

**[Jinani]**   
cucumbers help against hangovers. just in case youre looking for a healthier alternative to bottles of painkillers

Jiwon holds his phone in both hands and refuses to fight the smile on his face. Maybe the lessons have already started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok. i realize having two (2) prologues with over 3,000 words each kind of defeats the whole purpose of prologues. but i am an artist and i can do what i want.
> 
> so basically, i'm making things up as i go, i have no idea how long this is gonna be and what's gonna happen when. there will be plot (a whole lot of it) and the other members will also be introduced in future chapters, but that's pretty much the only thing that is certain right now. that, and that there's gonna be a happy ending. c:
> 
> also, the softerworld comics are quotes that inspired me for the boys' characters and their dynamic, so more than just the prologues are based on them.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more supportive crime friends  
>  **warning** my dudes, there are allusions to past child abuse in this chapter. it is absolutely nothing graphic and it passes quickly and it will most likely not be brought up again in the fic. if it does come up, i'll put up another warning. lmk if you need anything else to stay safe, i'm over [here](http://twitter.com/roachprince) and [here](http://bbhwn.tumblr.com).

The marriage certificate is still lying on the bed. Jinhwan kind of feels like it’s staring at him. Like it’s a separate entity, somehow. He hasn’t even dared to move it -- Jinhwan came back from the hotel buffet and wanted to flop down on his bed, but it was still there and he couldn’t, not comfortably. So instead of picking it up and putting it away, Jinhwan let it lie on his crumpled sheets and sat on the lone arm chair at the other end of the room. And now it’s staring at him, and Jinhwan is staring back.

What the hell is he going to do with this?

His phone vibrates in his hands and Jinhwan flinches. He’s been curled up on this chair holding the thing close to his body, waiting for someone to text him -- Junhwe, his sister, anyone. Maybe Jiwon; maybe. He did say he would, but Jinhwan did think he probably wouldn’t. There’s a reason they all lost contact so quickly, and it’s because they’re shit at communicating.

Or at least they were when they were kids. Jinhwan peeks at his phone, smiles and immediately saves the number before the second text flies in.

**[unknown number]**   
Hey man I’m sorry kimbap freaked on you

**[dumber]**   
This is hanbin btw

**[you]**   
yeah i figured as soon as you referred to a human being as kimbap

**[dumber]**   
:^)   
You still got time right? Wanna come see my place, talk things out on neutral ground?   
This marriage deserves to be saved

**[you]**   
what do you mean you have your own place, youre like 5 years old   
ill come after ive showered. send over the address

As Jinhwan gets up, he wonders if Jiwon told Hanbin what he found out, but the thought barely lasts for two seconds. Of course Jiwon told him. Otherwise Hanbin wouldn’t know that they have to  _ talk things out _ already, and either way, Jiwon tells Hanbin everything. Jinhwan highly doubts that that’s changed. They seemed as close as ever last night, if not closer, so Hanbin probably knows about Jinhwan’s recent career changes, probably knows the exact hotel room size, the quality of his bed sheets and how Jinhwan’s ass looked.

He doesn’t mind. Hell, maybe this is good, maybe it’s better this way. Jinhwan and Jiwon have always had a bit of a push and pull dynamic, and it was always good, but they did need Hanbin to even things out now and then. And with every word that Jinhwan exchanges with either of them, he thinks that not much seems to have changed.

Except that Hanbin makes jokes about them being married now.

After showering and putting on clean clothes, Jinhwan stands around in front of his bed, towelling off his hair and staring at the damn piece of paper. Maybe he should take it with him, give it to Jiwon. He’s not exactly sure why, though. Jinhwan wants it out of the room, but if he gave it to Jiwon he’s pretty sure he’d just lose it somehow. And they probably need the certificate to get the annulment, right? Probably. Jinhwan has no idea how any of this works.

It’s still on the bed, unmoved, when Jinhwan leaves.

Las Vegas is always changing, and yet always the same. Jinhwan has come back here once after moving away, but he didn’t do much then, so it kind of feels like he hasn’t been here since finishing school. He does have to look up the address Hanbin sent him, and it’s in a completely different part from where they grew up as children, but once he knows the route there everything seems to fall into place. He recognizes street names and buildings, bus stops, benches, even some plants seem to be welcoming him home.

He’s not so sure how to feel about it; but it’s not as bad as he had feared back when he booked the flight. Jinhwan never really liked it here, as a kid, but Hanbin and Jiwon always made it better. So now, being here and knowing that he’s on his way to seeing them again, makes it better.

Nervousness still pulls at his stomach after knocking on the apartment door. Truthfully, Jinhwan has no idea what’s waiting for him in there, what’s there to talk about, what Jiwon needs to hear from him to not run off again. Now that he’s fully awake, showered and fed, he doesn’t want to jeopardize it by doing or saying something wrong, and he kind of wishes he had thought of that earlier this morning.

Hanbin opens the door and Jinhwan almost sucks in a sharp breath.

_ Why do both of them look so good now. _ Where are the gangly losers he went to school with?

“Hi Mister Kim Jiwon,” Hanbin says and grins stupidly, which is very helpful. Jinhwan rolls his eyes and pushes past him.

“Hi,” he says. “I’m assuming Mister Kim Jinhwan is already here?”

“Yeah, he’s in the living room. First door on the right. You know, it’s kind of really sad that both of you just get to keep your last names. Nobody’s gonna be able to tell that you’re married. You should get rings.”

“I do kind of want one right now, so it’d hurt more when I punch you in the face,” Jinhwan says, and he’s thankful when Hanbin catches up so he’s right beside him as he enters the living room. The apartment doesn’t look too big, but if Hanbin lives here alone it’s definitely enough, and it’s pretty. The living room looks clean and almost like a photo someone took inside a furniture store; it’s kind of weird to see Jiwon sit on a couch like that. Jinhwan associates him with chaos, and he looks out of place here.

Even if he’s sitting there in a goddamn wide sprawl with his loose shirt askew and hair falling into his eyes. Or maybe especially because of that.

But he smiles when he sees Jinhwan. “Hey,” he says softly. Jinhwan feels like his heart grows three sizes; he’s suddenly not sure anymore what he was worrying about outside that door.

“Hi,” he replies, right before Hanbin sighs loudly behind him and starts pushing him towards the couch.

“Sit down, you nerd.”

“He’s gotten awfully cocky, hasn’t he?” says Jiwon, and Jinhwan laughs, and the look Jiwon shoots him is half apology and half adoration, and maybe this is going to be okay. Jinhwan sits down on the couch and Hanbin drops next to him, and Jinhwan feels right at home sandwiched between the two of them.

“Shut up,” Hanbin says, zero venom behind it. His hand lands on Jinhwan’s thigh like that’s a perfectly normal place to keep it when asking, “So I hear you’re originally in town for a kill?”

Jiwon groans. “Wow, you cut to the chase.”

“What? We’ve already had the whole  _ How you been _ talk last night, even if I might be the only one who remembers it. No use beating around the bush.”

“It’s fine,” Jinhwan says gently. He’s watching Hanbin’s fingers over the fabric of his pants. “Yes, I came here for a job. It’s already done, too.”

“How,” Jiwon starts, then clears his throat. “How often do you… do this, then?”

“Not that often. I mean, it’s not a nine-to-five job. Requests fly in every few weeks or so, and then I still vet them and check the designated target to make sure if I even wanna take it. I turn a lot of people down. So really, I guess I only do this every two or three months. Something like that.”

“See,” Hanbin says, leaning forward a little to throw Jiwon a careful grin. “Told you he only kills the gross old ones.”

Jinhwan smiles. That is scarily close to the truth. And even Jiwon seems close to smiling when he looks up at him. “I’m sorry I spooked you,” Jinhwan says quietly. “And I get that you don’t like it. You don’t have to. It’s not exactly my dream job, either, and I’m not planning on doing it forever.”

Jiwon nods, but the smile isn’t coming. “Why do it now, though?” he asks. “I mean, you… I mean, you definitely could have come up with another source of income.”

Looking down, Jinhwan tries and fails to fight the bitter smile on his lips now. That’s not something he’s looking forward to sharing. “Yeah, you two have actual normal day jobs now, right?” he says instead.

“I help my brother with running dad’s agency,” Jiwon says and huffs a laugh. “I’m pretty bad at it, though. I mostly just hang around in Hanbin’s office.”

“I write, um,” Hanbin clears his throat, “I write jingles. Like, for ads.”

Jinhwan looks up and Hanbin’s ears are beet red. “I remember you saying something,” Jinhwan muses, watching Hanbin squirm a bit in his seat, “about how writing jingles is for burnt out composers who sold their souls to capitalism.”

“Yeah, well, I was a dumb teenager when I said that,” Hanbin says loudly, and squeezes Jinhwan’s thigh, but it doesn’t last very long until he falters a bit. “I do kinda feel like it’s slowly but surely sucking my soul out, though, yeah. You know, paycheck for paycheck.”

“Tragic,” says Jinhwan.

“So what do you do?” Jiwon says, ever the gentleman, saving Hanbin. “You gotta have a day job.”

“Nope,” Jinhwan says. “No day job, no legal source of income. My cover is I’m a lazy spoiled kid jetting around for parties and living off of his grandfather’s fat inheritance.” They’re both frowning at him now, and Jinhwan laughs a little. “I wire money to the rest of my family in the name of my grandfather too, in case you’re wondering. I’m not that selfish. Plus, it’d ruin my cover if I was the only one to get anything.”

“You pay your parents and your sister with assassin money?” Hanbin says, like he’s trying to suppress a laugh that feels more inappropriate to him than to Jinhwan.

“Wait,” Jiwon says before he can answer. “So, you mean… All you do in life is fly to places and kill people there every three months? That’s it?”

Jinhwan takes an audible breath that makes Jiwon recoil a few inches. “Do not start with me,” he says softly. “Everyone’s always on my case about using my time for real jobs and college, don’t you--”

“No,” Jiwon says quickly, the tiniest of grins tugging at his lips. He raises his hands in defense and Jinhwan relaxes a bit. “No, that’s not what I was trying to say at all. I’m just, uh… I’m just jealous.”

“Jiwon’s been craving the delinquent lifestyle lately,” Hanbin says and Jinhwan almost laughs about his dorky choice of words, until he catches Jiwon’s slightly embarrassed, but mostly distinctly wistful stare. And he realizes that Hanbin is right. “But you didn’t answer the initial question,” Hanbin continues before he can pry about it, and Jinhwan’s stomach does a little lurch. “Why do it now when you don’t really want to?”

Jinhwan sighs. “I do kinda want to, I guess,” he says. Hanbin’s hand still lying warmly on his thigh is incredibly soothing, and even Jiwon to his other side is shifting around on the couch now until he can pull both of his legs up and turn so he’s facing Jinhwan’s side completely, ready to listen. Ready to understand. “I just have … excess aggression I need to blow off, and it helps with that.”

“That’s gotta be a hell of a lotta aggression,” Jiwon says. Jinhwan thinks that he missed his stupid garbled way of speaking and tries to push the thought away with mediocre success.

“You guys remember how my grandfather used to scare me shitless?” Jinhwan says. He leans his head back against the backrest of Hanbin’s couch and looks at the ceiling, watching them nod from the corners of his eyes. He doesn’t have to tell them this; he knows. They didn’t ask him to elaborate on that aggression thing and even if they did, Jinhwan could turn them down and they wouldn’t press too much. They love him, they still do. It hasn’t been a full day since he’s met them again after so long, but it’s obvious in everything they say, everything they do here, and Jinhwan still loves them back.

He doesn’t have to tell them. But he can.

“The one on your mother’s side, right?” Hanbin says and Jinhwan nods.

“Yeah. I’d have nightmares about him as a kid and everything. And then back in high school I just sort of hated him, but he always scared me,” Jinhwan says, slowly now, picking his words carefully. “And I used to just think of him as strict and loud, but the older I got the more I realized how much more than that it was. How much he was… He was just a horrible person, and he did horrible things to me, and-- and I’m not sure, but I think to my sister and my mother too, probably. I mean I don’t wanna get into it too deep--”

“You don’t have to,” Jiwon says softly, to Hanbin nodding fast. Jinhwan gulps down a breath of air and nods, too.

“Either way, I grew up and got less terrified of him and more fucking livid. And it was… Shit, generally it was a bad time in my life, and all I could focus on was that anger, and at that point I had never even tried to kill another person before, but I wanted it so bad. You know? I just wanted him dead. It was all I could think about. He didn’t move with us, he was still here in Vegas, and that was good on one hand because he was away from us, but I kept thinking -- what if he’s being just as horrible to other people now? I couldn’t take the thought, and I felt responsible in a stupid way, and I just… I was just so fucking angry, and I wanted him gone.”

“So you killed him?” Hanbin asks when Jinhwan pauses for another breath. “And that was how it started?”

“No,” Jinhwan says and shakes his head with a bitter snort. “Not exactly. I got everything prepared and came back here, armed like I was going into war, all set with an alibi and an exit strategy, everything. And then I find him -- a man I hadn’t talked to in years, you know -- and I break into his apartment thinking I’m gonna talk him through it, I’m gonna draw this out, make him understand just why this is happening, see if he’s even capable of a modicum of regret.” Hanbin squeezes his thigh again and Jinhwan sighs softly. “So I break in there and I find him and I realize that he’s fucking senile. On all kinds of meds, bedroom looking like the world’s saddest retirement home. Doesn’t remember shit. Kinda recognizes my face, gets my name wrong though. Thinks I’m one of his nurses.”

“Shit,” Jiwon says, voice barely above a whisper.

“I couldn’t do it,” Jinhwan continues quietly. “It seemed pointless. I’d just bring myself in danger of getting caught for killing someone who doesn’t even know what he did anymore. So I left. He died half a year later all on his own, and I used his death for my whole cover story about inheriting money from him, so that seemed at least a little bit fair.” The boys are nodding again, so Jinhwan takes one last deep breath. “So now I have all this pent up energy, and all the stuff I got for that whole mission, and all this -- as I said, all this aggression. I did everything to psych myself up into killing someone, and then when I left him there in his bed I didn’t feel relieved at all, more like I was wasting whatever I had built there. And, so…” Jinhwan shrugs, looking from Jiwon to Hanbin to his own lap with a beaten smile. “...That’s the story of how I started killing people for money because I didn’t know what else to do with myself.”

It’s silent for a good few beats, but Jinhwan doesn’t even get to feel uncomfortable. Jiwon is so close now that his knees are touching Jinhwan’s thighs, and Hanbin’s hand is still where it was when he started talking. In stark contrast to his hasty retreat this morning, Jiwon doesn’t even seem to think about leaning away from Jinhwan a single inch.

“Wow,” Hanbin says finally, the word gentle in the silence of the living room.

“I get that it must have freaked you guys out,” Jinhwan says carefully. “I don’t know if this helps, but I do try to go after people who deserve it. I mean, it’s definitely still murder, but I get if--”

“Jinanie,” Jiwon says, and Jinhwan falls silent immediately. “It’s fine. I mean it’s still, you know, a lot, but whatever you were going to say, it’s not gonna happen. I didn’t know what to do this morning, but, you know what? I trust you. I’m sober now and I know that much. It’s fine.”

“He ate, like, an entire cucumber,” Hanbin says, and Jinhwan can’t stop the relieved giggle ripping from his throat.

Things get more relaxed from there. Hanbin shows him around his apartment, all the while talking about how Jiwon’s place looks more like a garbage dump and sighing at how Jiwon doesn’t even try to refute it. Apparently it’s right across the street too, so the two of them still spend almost as much time together as they did when they roomied for college. Jinhwan has to swallow down how jealous he is and how shitty it feels that he somehow didn’t manage to get here sooner, but his mood is soothed immediately when they all agree to spend Jinhwan’s last night in town together.

On the strip.

The three of them hang around Hanbin’s apartment some more before that, laze about in front of the TV and order a lot more takeout than they can eat. Jinhwan has the boys tell him all embarrassing college stories they can think of, and in return he talks about the places he’s seen on his travels without talking too much about the actual jobs he pulled there.

  
  


“You know, we have to go to work tomorrow,” Hanbin says airily as they sit down around a poker table. Jinhwan is glad he finally gets to actually use the tux he brought; he looks damn good in it.

“Don’t say that where someone can hear,” Jinhwan says and straightens his back. “People will use anything against you in poker. You should know that.”

“Oh, you’re not the only one who grew up here, Jinan,” Hanbin says. He throws him a grin that looks a lot more like high school Hanbin than jingle composer Hanbin.

What follows is a row of the dirtiest games Jinhwan has ever played. Hanbin has done something to his hair that never seemed to work right when they were teenagers, but they’re styled up and back perfectly now. Jiwon is still wearing his loose white shirt, only threw a suit jacket and a pair of slacks on over it, and he looks fucking delectable. Jinhwan has been staring, and the boys have been noticing, and then everyone else at the table starts noticing too and Jinhwan gets a taste of his own medicine once he realizes that and has to pull himself together.

Ever the children of this city, all three of them play hard and risky, and ever the kids who used to hang out with Jiwon’s dad, they get some good money out of it. Jinhwan is already planning his next shopping tour by the time Hanbin gets up to excuse himself to the bathroom. He looks a mixture of tired and tipsy, and Jiwon and Jinhwan look after him with knowing grins.

“So,” Jiwon says softly, eyes on his cards, “you’re really flying back tomorrow?”

Jinhwan throws him a short glance; he’s been awfully quiet tonight. In a good mood, evident through the occasional grin and laugh to whatever Jinhwan or Hanbin were saying, but still quiet.

“Why?” Jinhwan asks instead of answering.

“Well, I was just thinking,” Jiwon says, rearranges two cards and goes back to watching the others at the table. “The whole annulment deal might be a lot easier if you actually stayed in town, don’t you think? I mean I know we’ve been saying we’ll stay in contact this time and you’ll drop by more often but, still. ‘s not like you got anything else to do, right? No new job in sight for now?”

Jinhwan makes a pensive noise that’s half addressing his cards. “I usually try not to stay too long since the cops are gonna be investigating and all, but I should be safe either way,” he says slowly. This whole day, he hasn’t really been feeling like his trip will already be over tomorrow, and maybe this is why. Maybe he’s just been waiting for this. “I could cancel my plane ticket and book a few more nights at the hotel.”

“You don’t have to sleep at the hotel,” Jiwon says, his voice barely audible for a second, until he shoots him a sheepish grin. “You can stay at my garbage dump.” Jinhwan grins back, but Jiwon is already trying to force his focus back on the game, giving a one-shouldered shrug. “Or I guess you could stay at Hotel Hanbin, but, I mean--”

“--we’re married now,” Jinhwan finishes for him. Jiwon laughs and nods, long fingers fidgeting with his cards. The other players must think he’s nervous about his hand, not about asking Jinhwan to stay. “It’s alright. I’ll stay at Hotel Garbage Dump.”

“Nice,” Jiwon says. When Hanbin returns to their table, he greets him with a blinding grin. “Jinanie’s not leaving tomorrow after all, he’ll be staying longer.”

“Oh, cool,” Hanbin says. “Does that mean I don’t have to feel obligated to stay here when I have to be at work in, uh, eight hours?”

Jinhwan laughs, but still slaps his arm with a handful of cards. “Very charming. But yeah, fine, we can go after this round.”

“Great. I’m not used to this part of town anymore. Someone in the bathroom thought I was a Chinese tourist,” Hanbin says, watching Jiwon choke on his laughter with a frown. “And you know what? I got the wild urge to steal his watch in retaliation.”

“Why didn’t you?” Jinhwan asks, unable to hide the shit-eating grin.

“I,” Hanbin says, and closes his mouth. “Actually, I don’t know.”

  
  


After leaving the strip, Jiwon and Jinhwan say goodnight to Hanbin and go back to Jinhwan’s hotel to pick up his stuff. Both of them eye the marriage certificate lying on the bed in silence for a good few seconds before Jinhwan picks it up and gingerly puts it in the front pocket of his suitcase.

Jiwon looks away when Jinhwan packs up his weapons, but maybe that’s just a coincidence.

  
  


Jiwon's place does not look like a garbage dump. Jinhwan thinks it looks more like a freshly ransacked Oxfam store. “Did your wardrobe explode?” Jinhwan asks, carefully stepping over a pile of what looks like five hundred hoodies. “You know, if I didn’t know you, my first thought would be that someone broke in here and messed up the place looking for the declaration of independence or something.”

“Nicolas Cage better not set one foot into my damn apartment,” Jiwon says, kicking his shoes off at a seemingly completely random spot near the kitchen door. “Also, you do know me, so, shut up. You’re already sounding like Hanbin.”

“Well, we don’t want that,” Jinhwan says softly. He pads through the apartment some more, looking around curiously. The stuff lying around really seems to be mostly clothes, a few scattered books, and there’s a guitar lying on the coffee table. Honestly, Jinhwan is just glad that he’s not seeing any moldy food; Jiwon used to be the kind of kid to leave his lunch lying around in his backpack all through the entirety of summer break, forcing his parents to buy entirely new lunch boxes for every term.

“So, uh, I didn’t really plan this through,” Jiwon says. His suit jacket is gone when Jinhwan looks at him and he has no idea where it went. “I can sleep on the couch if you want my bed to yourself?”

“Jiwon, I’ve slept in your bed with you back when you didn’t even have proper pubes yet,” Jinhwan says. “I don’t mind.”

“Yo, leave my pubes alone, they were just fine,” Jiwon says and flicks on the lightswitch in a different room. Jinhwan follows him, dragging his suitcase behind him. The rolls bump into a pair of shoes, but Jinhwan hardly pays it any mind.

That bed looks fantastic.

It’s huge and it looks soft, of course the pillows are strewn about and the blankets are bunched up, but this Jinhwan doesn’t mind. The whole room seems cozy, big with soft lighting, a comfortable looking arm chair in one corner, a laptop on one of the two bedside tables. He likes it. This is a lot better than the hotel.

Admittedly, Jinhwan has very rarely spent a night alone with Jiwon without Hanbin somehow squeezing into bed with them, too. Also, it has been a long time since he slept next to Jiwon -- consciously, not blackout drunk like last night. They start out a little awkward, hesitating while taking their clothes off, both of them unsure how naked exactly they want to be. Jinhwan usually sleeps in just boxers, but thumbs at the hem of his shirt for a little before he decides that he doesn’t have to care; Jiwon saw him buck naked just this morning.

God, it’s been a long day.

Jiwon leaves his shirt on, crawls into bed next to Jinhwan, shifts around for a few seconds, then gives a frustrated grunt and shoves his shirt off and to the floor.

“A’ight, that’s better,” he mutters, slipping deep under the covers. Then he reaches to the side and rearranges something right next to his head, leaning on the wall. Jinhwan shifts a bit, props himself up on an elbow to look at it, then drops back on the mattress with a quiet laugh after spotting the stuffed animal watching over them now.

“Seriously? Still?”

“Will you get off my ass?” Jiwon says immediately, but there’s a laugh pulling at his voice. “He helps me sleep. I’m gonna need that tonight if I don’t wanna die at work tomorrow.”

“Today,” Jinhwan corrects after a glance at the alarm clock on the nightstand. Jiwon groans.

They stay silent for a bit; both of them are close to their respective edges of the mattress, putting as much space between them as they can. Jinhwan has never feared physical contact with his friends, neither Hanbin nor Jiwon, and they’ve always been touchy. But it’s all been a while, and it seemed more innocent back then, when they were dorky teenagers who had wet dreams about quick handjobs. They’re fully grown now, very much fully grown if both of their broad chests, the happy trails, the tattoos are any indication. Jinhwan definitely feels like he still knows Jiwon as a person, but the long, hard body next to him is something he will have to get used to.

But eventually, every time someone tosses and turns, they inch a little closer towards the middle. At some point Jinhwan feels their shoulders brush past each other for a split second and assumes that Jiwon must have fallen asleep already, but when he steals a glance, Jiwon is on his back again and looking at the ceiling.

“You okay?” Jinhwan murmurs, not wanting to speak up much in the sleepy, cozy atmosphere.

“Huh?” Jiwon glances towards him, then back at the ceiling with a smile. “Yeah, I’m fine. I just still got a little… like, a little buzz from that card game earlier. Haven’t done that in ages. ‘s good, though.”

Jinhwan hums softly. He wasn’t going to bring this up tonight originally, but Jiwon actually does sound pretty awake still, so maybe he won’t feel bad for it. “That thing Hanbin said,” he starts, “about you  _ missing the delinquent life? _ How serious was he?”

“Ah,” Jiwon says, a helpless grin sneaking onto his lips. “Pretty serious, I guess. I dunno. We’ve been talking about it recently, him and me. I mean, you know I was never really… You know, sometimes it felt like you and Bin were bigger fans of my dad than I was.”

He chuckles at that, and Jinhwan chuckles a little too, but it’s quiet. The news about Jiwon’s father still haven’t fully settled, he thinks. Not for him. Jinhwan really did look up to the man, and the knowledge that this time, he’s not around somewhere in this city, won’t drop by or call Jiwon out of nowhere, will never tell them another story about his heists, is a tough pill to swallow.

“But I did care about his second business, and I did appreciate what he did,” Jiwon continues. “Still do, really. And even though I never thought I’d follow in his footsteps, ever since he's been gone, I… We used to have this criminal energy in the air, in my parents’ home, between us. And that's gone now. And I miss it. Even his old associates, you know, they stop by sometimes, and they try to help us with investigating his death, but they're just that:  _ old.  _ They were good back in their own days, but they don't really know the business anymore. We're not getting anywhere with those investigations and I think mom and bro are kinda giving up, but I just wanna… I just wanna stay in. That atmosphere, the chase, I feel like that's one of the biggest things dad left behind, and I don't wanna miss it. Is all.”

“You really are his son,” is the first thing Jinhwan says, smiling softly. He's met a great deal of people who steal because they have to, or who turn to crime for the money or out of sheer spite, but Jiwon’s father always had that philosophical edge to it. And they all got it from him. “So, what does that mean? You wanna find whoever killed him and get revenge? No offense, but that last part doesn't sound like you. Or your dad.”

“That's because you associate revenge with death,” Jiwon says, so matter-of-factly that Jinhwan squints at him. “I don't wanna kill anyone. I wanna be what my father was. I wanna find people who deserve it, and I wanna rob them.”

For a few seconds, Jinhwan doesn't say anything, just watches him. Jiwon is still on his back, but his gaze towards the ceiling is wide-eyed now, like he only just realized what he said. Like he had to hear it out loud to really get it to sink in, that he wants to do this, that he wants to rob people. The guy who still sleeps with his stuffed bear, Jinhwan thinks, wants to rob people.

“Okay,” Jinhwan says slowly, but before he can say anything else he sees panic creep into Jiwon's features.

“I can't rob people,” he says, words loud and fast now. “I don't know how to… I don't know how to do  _ anything,  _ actually. I don't even know how to pick a lock, and that's kinda basic. I-I have no idea how anything works. This is stupid, I'm not gonna  _ avenge  _ anyone, I haven't stolen a thing since middle school.”

“That's not true, you stole all my pens in high school,” Jinhwan says dryly and Jiwon huffs. The stupid joke seems to have calmed him at least a bit, and Jinhwan’s voice softens again. “And you did help Hanbin and me now and then. You weren't bad; you’ve stolen stuff, Jiwon, relax. Who knows if anyone will ever be your dad's caliber again, but if you wanna do this, you can. We'll make a thief out of you yet.”

Jiwon whips his head to the side and raises his eyebrows so high that they disappear under the mess of black hair falling into his face.  _ “We?” _

“Well, yeah,” Jinhwan says, thankful that his voice sounds confident and the room is dark enough to hide the heat in his ears. “I mean, I’m here already, so… I can teach you how to pick locks, if you want. It’s not that hard.”

“That’d be cool,” Jiwon says, a grin back on his lips, and turns his head towards the ceiling again. “Hanbin doesn’t wanna teach me, you know, he’s scared he’ll do something wrong and dad’s angry ghost will descend from the heavens and kick his ass.”

“No problem, I’m way better than him anyway,” Jinhwan says, and feels his chest warm up at the sound of Jiwon giggling loudly. Then Jiwon tries to kick him under the blankets, but severely overestimates the length of Jinhwan’s body, and kicks into nothing.

He still seems excited after that, but exhaustion must catch up with him too, because he’s falling asleep soon. Jinhwan listens to his even breathing for a while, and once Jiwon turns on his side and he can feel his breath fanning over his naked shoulder, his eyes are drooping, too.

  
  


The blaring of Jiwon’s alarm wakes him up after only a few hours of sleep. In the haze of his mind, Jinhwan is pretty sure Jiwon had his arm slung around his middle and his body pressed up against his back just before they both woke up, but then Jiwon jolts awake and disappears. Jinhwan watches him shuffle around the room through bleary eyes for a bit, then he slides them shut again and goes back to sleep.

Two hours later, he does force himself to roll out of bed. Jinhwan eyes his still closed suitcase for a slow, tired minute, then he grabs one of Jiwon’s hoodies off the floor and slips that on instead.

He finds coffee in the kitchen and pours himself a cup, then he stands around in front of the big windows of Jiwon’s living room for a while, looking over the city. It’s still weird, he thinks, knowing that his dad isn’t around here somewhere. Jiwon seems put together by now and Jinhwan figures he missed out on the worst parts of his grief, but half a year is not a lot of time. That wound is still fresh, and now it is for Jinhwan, too, and he hates knowing that they’re  _ still looking into it. _ What Jiwon said makes sense -- if there’s one thing Jinhwan has learned about the business of killing, it’s that it modernizes itself perpetually. Fuck, you can find hitmen on Craigslist now. The cool, old-school friends of his father were brilliant minds in their own era, but finding a killer in this day and age might be out of their league.

And that’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair; Jiwon’s father was a good man, a good dad, a father figure even to Jinhwan and Hanbin in a way, and his family deserves to know who took him from them. And whoever did it deserves to be fucking robbed by his son.

Jinhwan frowns. He stares at nothing a little more, his tired brain thinking, calculating. Then he turns, his coffee mug in one hand, the other one rummaging through his things until he finds his phone and pulls up his contact list to make a call.

_ “Good morning, sunshine!” _ someone all but fucking yells on the other end, and Jinhwan grimaces. He makes a point to take a sip of coffee first, makes him wait for the reply.

“Hi, Junhwe,” he says then. “I need you to do me a favor.”


End file.
